Ron Paul activists are the ‘Occupy’ movement of the right

By Neal Larson

A few days ago, Congressman Ron Paul used the word “infiltration” while describing his supporters’ relationship with the Republican Party. On more than one occasion Paul supporters have called my radio show telling me, “We’re taking over your party, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Months ago, one of my politically-connected friends warned me of the Ron Paul strategy to win the nomination by hijacking delegates, and while I didn’t disbelieve his prediction, I was skeptical that it could be done. Since the outcomes in both Maine and Nevada now have been manipulated by Paul supporters, I’m awake to the effort, and find myself scrambling to warn as many as possible with the few days left we have before the primary election on May 15.

A plan is in place among Paul’s most ardent supporters in Idaho to win as many Republican precinct committee races as possible, enough to successfully vote for a suspension of party rules at the state convention this summer, and re-assign the delegates in some manner preferable to Ron Paul. In essence, they are attempting to reverse the caucus results in their favor.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the libertarian infiltration of the GOP has become the “Occupy” movement of the right. At times in history, a political ideology becomes so intoxicating to some that they are willing to short-circuit fundamental principles of freedom and self-government, because their ends justify the means. Several of the Paul supporters have said that this strategy is acceptable because sometimes the people get it wrong, or that the rules allow for such maneuvering. When a political activist reaches this place, it is a scary place indeed. The argument for a king, dictator, tyrant or Dear Leader is always made because sometimes the “people get it wrong.” Ron Paul has become their Dear Leader.

This is all happening on a previously ignored level of politics. The precinct committee races never used to be considered all that important. But this has been the quiet door through which Paul’s supporters have slipped in. Coming up on May 15, more are waiting to enter. In recent election cycles a subtle but real effort has resulted in leadership changes in county parties across the country that have given a disproportionate representation to the pro-Paul libertarian wing of the party. It’s often hard to identify them. They don’t make “Because the people are too stupid…” their yard sign slogan, though they should.

And the irony is not lost on me that the very people who speak so vocally of freedom and constitutional principles would disenfranchise the tens of thousands of Idahoans who spent — in some cases — hours in a not-so-comfortable caucus to cast their vote.

Our job is to be more vigilant in the final days before the election. Do some homework. Find out who’s running for precinct committeman in your neighborhood. Call them. Vet them. If they don’t answer unequivocally to uphold the voice of Idahoans in this year’s caucus, don’t just vote against them. Actively work to prevent them from getting elected. Tell your Facebook friends. Pick up your phones. Go door to door and campaign for individuals who value and will protect the raw material of a self-governed society: Our vote.

I have been impressed by much of Ron Paul’s message. It has made a difference in this primary process. While some candidates may never get elected to high office, their presence in a campaign can have a lasting positive effect. This is the case with Congressman Paul. What disappoints me is that this consistent congressman who has persistently articulated a message of freedom has become so hungry to have an influence in the election, he’s resorting to tactics that run counter to his rhetoric and core beliefs. Let’s call this what it is: appalling, despicable and atrocious. If our vote matters, we must honor it by disallowing such a maneuver.

We have, in the past, been subject to covert political efforts that threatened to destabilize our freedom. They’re covert because their message doesn’t have mass appeal. And when a message lacks the power to change enough hearts and minds to win an election, the alternative should never be to steal it.

On May 15, we have the power to not just preserve our voice and the voice of a vast majority of Idahoans. We have the power to jettison a corrosive element that has by its own admission infiltrated the Republican Party. The Republican tent ought to be big, but never so big as to allow a faction that seeks to usurp our freedom.

Neal Larson of Idaho Falls is a conservative talk show host on KID Newsradio 590am and 92.1fm. “The Neal Larson Show” can be heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. His email address is neal@590kid.com.

20 comments - What do you think?
Posted by
ifennell -
May 11, 2012 at 2:51 pm

20 Responses to “Ron Paul activists are the ‘Occupy’ movement of the right”

While the republicans took over Idaho circa 1980s, it was generally with big government congress people supporting with farm price supports, earmarks, tax breaks, and taxpayer money filtering down to their friends. That is why the supposedly very red state of Idaho has the ninth highest tax rate in the country. Republican establishment types have made themselves very vulnerable by being closet big government RINOs.

The Republican establishment needs to eliminate the state income tax. If they do not do it, Ron Paul’s crew will.

Signed into law an economic plan that saved America from a depression, restored growth, and created or saved as many as 3.6 million jobs.
Signed into law landmark health insurance reform that holds insurance companies accountable, gives people and small businesses greater control of health care, and improves the quality of health care for all Americans.
Fought against Wall Street lobbyists to sign into law historic consumer protections and financial reforms that shield American families from unfair lending practices from credit card and mortgage companies, rein in the excesses of Wall Street, and work to prevent future financial crises.

Reformed the college loan system by ending subsidies to banks and using the money to make college more affordable. He also invested in community colleges that are providing Americans with the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy.

Rescued the American auto industry, which saved millions of American jobs and helped GM and Chrysler become profitable again while repaying taxpayers.

Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which makes it possible for individuals to serve in the military regardless of their sexual orientation.

Helped women get the equal pay they deserve by signing into law the Lilly Ledbetter Act.
Ended the war in Iraq, initiated a responsible drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

Ended the war in Iraq, initiated a responsible drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

The President is taking aggressive steps to put Americans back to work and create an economy where hard work pays and responsibility is rewarded.

For years before the economic crisis, middle-class security had been slipping away. Wages stagnated while health care costs soared.
We’ve added back more than 4.2 million private sector jobs and seen 26 straight months of job growth—but there’s more work to do.
When President Obama took office, he both addressed the immediate economic crisis and laid the foundation for a U.S. economy that’s built to last.

LOS ANGELES (FinalCall.com) – The Civil Unrest of April 29, 1992 following the acquittal of four White police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King was the worst in U.S. history. It resulted in 55 deaths and close to $1 billion in property damage and cast a national and international spotlight on Blacks and the city. With the 20th anniversary of the event came a simple question: What, if anything, has changed for Los Angeles and America?

For Karen Bass (D-Calif.), “tremendous progress” has been made, “yet work still needs to be done.” According to MarketWatch, produced by the Wall Street Journal, metro Los Angeles’ current unemployment rate of 11.1 percent is “higher than it was when the violence and destruction broke out … a roughly 40 percent increase in the jobless rate in 20 years.”

A University of Southern California study after the unrest found Blacks and Latinos in South Central and Southeast Los Angeles suffered from “very high levels of poverty and unemployment. In South Central, 31 percent lived below the poverty level, and the unemployment rate was 13.7 percent.” The Los Angeles Urban League reported last August that the unemployment rate for Blacks stood at 16.3 percent; while joblessness was 12 percent for Latinos and 8.7 percent for Whites. The poverty rate for Blacks in 2010 had dropped to 21.5 percent, but the median household income for Blacks ($49,000) was 57 percent of Whites’ median income of nearly $86,000.

So we should be dancing in the streets with all of the wonderful things going on?

Just for one example. GM is profitable and busily building factories OVERSEAS with whose money? Lost an estimated 137,000 jobs in the melee. Stock has to be double what it is before the taxpayer will “break even”. Get your $18,000 msrp Fiat 500 at your local Chrysler dealer. Oh, and a bubba truck discounted up to about $15,000 and still not selling.

I don’t see the guy doing anything but doing things that are don’t care items. He and Joe Biden with their false apologies were disgusting. It’s the economy stupid. Hollywood likes him, which can’t be a good thing.

Estimated half million people gave up looking for a job last month of which about 70% were women per the people who keep such stats. DUH.

24% of jobs pay below $10 an hour. Labor force participation numbers are way, way down to numbers not seen since 1981. But per you things are better. If this is better, I’ll pass. Next president is going to have hell to pay, no matter who he is. Things can get worse, your list guarantee it. It’s the economy stupid.

A comparison of the libertarian movement to the occupiers is a bit harsh. Until Paul’s thugs act on par with deficating on police cars (while accusing those same cops of infultrating the movement with those people who poop in such brazen glory) I’ll admit that maybe you have a point.

You are the man! I love it and want to personally thank for you for declaring war on the Ron Paulers. You have electrified them and many others into using their God given and Constitutionally ordained freedoms to rage against the establishment machine that you love.

The funny thing is that you are not smart enough to see it and are one of the best examples of a ‘useful idiot’ that I know.

Thanks again man, you just might be the best player on the Ron Paul team!

If last time around was any indication, they tend to not show up for their own wars. Bad habit of theirs. Doesn’t take much to electrify them, a dead AAA battery will do. Reality is not their strong suit.

I’ll tell you whom I’m voting against? Depends on who is running on the other side as I’ve had a preference for a yellow dog for some time now. Somebody tried to hang Newt around my neck some time back with no effect. I’m for Change. He was worse, much worse.

Ron Paul represents the area of Texas between here and the coast, very familiar with him over the years. I can’t believe some of them still think he will win after losing two times previously. Some of the things he says get you on his side and then he charges off wildly into something else and you cringe and pretend not to have heard them. Perennial losing candidate.

Don’t be fooled by what you see. Mia Love (See the article for a link to her campaign website) might look black, but she ain’t like “us.” Despite the well-known racist notion that “all blacks look alike,” there is more to being black than looks alone. Black people generally share in common African ancestry and specific alleles that control for variations in skin color and other physical features; besides that, black folk are as rich and diverse a group as they come with many distinct cultures, languages, and dialects. To most Americans, however, what the casual observer typically categorizes as a “black person” is not always someone who identifies as “African American.” By African American, in this sense, I mean those individuals whose African ancestors where enslaved and then transported to the Eastern shores of what is now the United States, and through natural increase, became the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of former slaves. With that history comes a bloody and violent past replete with pain and suffering at the hands of white power and privilege. Africans enslaved in America centuries ago were forced to shape new relationships with former rival tribesman out of sheer necessity, thus developing into a culture that we know currently as African American. With that rich tapestry of African culture forged through a record of struggle and longsuffering, African Americans survived the onslaught of white supremacy by producing rich and vibrant Black communities, tight knit in personal connections, where knowledge was gathered and disseminated about how to survive and agitate for social justice that had long been denied. This is not to say that Mia Love and others of more recent immigrant lineage are not American, but the category of “African American” illuminates a particular heritage, enticing a certain frame in our minds (See the article for a link). Haitian Americans, on the other hand, as well as other black Americans of different emigrant origin and history have their own unique chronicle. Mia’s parents, for example, emigrated from Haiti to the United States in the 1970’s, some 170 years after their homeland gained its independence. With them, then, they brought received wisdoms unique to Haiti from its history of French colonial oppression. But also with them, they brought wisdoms, sensibilities, and frames associated with a history of black rule and sovereignty.

Ron Paul just stepped out of the race in case you hadn’t noticed. Seems he’s out of money to keep running, no success on the election circuit tends to do that to people.

What in the hell are you babbling about otherwise? You for or against and if so, what? So black is not black and what is not what? Is this an ‘evolving’ discussion or you just trying to sell books? I’m voting for the books reason.

You go to bed a 6:12am? Must be a liberal. Glad I don’t have a sleeping disorder, got that right?

Mr. Moore,

It’s evolving only on one side it would appear. You left out part of Shakespeare’s writings.

SONNET 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

… we need tens of thousands of more missionaries in the months and years that lie ahead. …

To those of you who have served or are now serving, we thank you for the good you have done and for the lives you have touched. Bless you! We also recognize that there are some who have hoped all their lives to serve missions, but for health reasons or other impediments beyond their control, they cannot do so. We publicly and proudly salute this group. We know of your desires, and we applaud your devotion. You have our love and our admiration. You are “on the team” and you always will be, even as you are honorably excused from full-time service. But we need the rest of you!

Now, you brethren of the Melchizedek Priesthood, don’t smile and settle back into the comfort of your seats. I am not through here. We need thousands of more couples serving in the missions of the Church. Every mission president pleads for them. Everywhere they serve, our couples bring a maturity to the work that no number of 19-year-olds, however good they are, can provide.

To encourage more couples to serve, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have made one of the boldest and most generous moves seen in missionary work in the last 50 years. In May of this year, priesthood leaders in the field received a notice that housing costs for couples (and we speak only of housing costs) would be supplemented by Church missionary funds if the cost exceeds a predetermined amount per month. What a blessing! This is heaven-sent assistance toward the single largest expense our couples face on their missions. The Brethren have also determined that couple missions can be for 6 or 12 months as well as the traditional 18 or 23. In another wonderful gesture, permission is given for couples, at their own expense, to return home briefly for critical family events. And stop worrying that you are going to have to knock on doors or keep the same schedule as the 19-year-olds! We don’t ask you to do that, but we have a host of other things you can do, with a great deal of latitude in how you do them.

Brethren, for good and sufficient health, family, or economic reasons, some of you, we realize, may not be able to go just now or perhaps ever. But with a little planning many of you can go.

“At times in history, a political ideology becomes so intoxicating to some that they are willing to short-circuit fundamental principles of freedom and self-government, because their ends justify the means.”
“And the irony is not lost on me that the very people who speak so vocally of freedom and constitutional principles would disenfranchise the tens of thousands of Idahoans who spent — in some cases — hours in a not-so-comfortable caucus to cast their vote.”

I don’t think you understand. Our country is a Republic not a Democracy. In a Democracy, Los Angeles, New York City, and those cities would elect the President. No candidates would even bother coming to Idaho, as we would have no voice in the matter.
The Founders understood this; rather than having the people directly elect the President, the people in each state elected electors from amongst their wisest and best people to elect a President on their behalf. The electors were called the electoral college. Another advantage of this system was that in the days before the radio, internet and tv, a lot of people weren’t “politically connected”, so the electoral college allowed them to vote for someone they knew, and trusted would elect a good President.
Now this was before there were political parties, so there was no primary, only a general election.
When the parties were created, it was only natural that they would follow the pattern established in the Constitution. The people elected people from their neighborhood as delegates to a County Convention, where they elected delegates to the State Convention, and then on to the National Convention.
But in time, the democratic part of our government grew more prominent. A preference poll was established among the people, probably for the purpose of giving the delegates and electors information on who the people they represented supported.
But then all the attention was centered on the preference poll, and the delegates and electors were largely forgotten.
That is, until a person named Ron Paul came along, with a platform of returning to the Constitution. It is only natural that a campaign centered on the Constitution would use the means provided in the Constitution to elect the President.
So we are not going against our principles of liberty, we are going on them.

One other note: Ron Paul has not dropped out of this race. He merely decided to stop wasting his money on the preference polls-which, as cool as they would be to win, ultimately aren’t even Constitutional nor crucial-and concentrate on the delegates instead.